Boost for live TV web streaming

Thursday 12 April 2007 03.30 EDT
First published on Thursday 12 April 2007 03.30 EDT

UK broadcasters are in talks with London-based tech firm Skinkers to introduce peer-to-peer distribution technology for live internet streaming.

Skinkers has confirmed it is in advanced negotiations with big UK broadcasters and will be looking to establish private trials following previews of the LiveStation technology at next week's National Association of Broadcasters conference in Las Vegas.

Live internet streaming can be difficult for broadcasters because distribution costs and the demand on servers increases with the number of viewers.

LiveStation is based on peer-to-peer technology. Broadcast signals are broken into different bands, shared between all the computers viewing the broadcast and reassembled in real time.

The technology was initially developed by Microsoft from 2000 and was licensed to Skinkers in July last year.

Andrew Herbert, the managing director of Microsoft's Cambridge-based research lab, said the application would be used not just on desktop screens, but on portable media devices.

He said LiveStation would allow companies to create extra revenue from their content by exploiting the "long tail" of niche content such as minor sports competitions or local football leagues.

"There are a very large number of special niches that could be explored, and very large revenues. This enables content providers to get more value from their content," Mr Herbert added.

He said the service had obvious applications for breaking news and sports, but that the business-to-business service could also be made available to large organisations that want to broadcast timely material in-house.

The technology could be integrated into the web TV propositions from UK broadcasters including the BBC's forthcoming iPlayer, ITV's ITV.com and Channel 4's 4oD service.

LiveStation is likely to be attractive to broadcasters as the bandwidth distribution costs will be paid for by users.

Mr Herbert acknowledged that some broadcasters might be concerned about the piracy legacy of P2P technology, which was the basis for copyright-infringing services such as Napster and Kazaa.

"It's an issue people bring up, but Microsoft has always combined digital rights management issues and done a good job of showing how rights can be protected," he said.

Ofcom research conducted last year as part of the market impact assessment for the BBC's iPlayer identified a strong demand for simulcast content online.

Twenty-nine per cent of people surveyed said they would use a simulcast feature on the iPlayer, and 31% said they would use a seven-day catch-up service.

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